Introducing Continuous electoral systems

[Charlls]

Its of utmost importance to discuss, debate the following; if there were to be only one reason for that, that would be the fact that is a yet completely unknown, absurdly untold, reasonably plausible electoral modality.


the initial thread was posted here:



http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=103&topic_id=25124

[Charlls]

1. how many of you guys thinks that a continuous election system makes sense?

just curious.

[Charlls]

2. erm... does someone at least 'understand' what are we talking here?

:shrug:

[SheilaT]

3. Maybe I'm the only one who gets it,

simply because about eight years ago I wrote a science fiction story based on this very idea. In it, everyone had home computers and spent as much time on-line voting for various issues. I assumed that senior citizens for the most part would be computer savvy, spend as much time as possible on-line, and constantly vote for things that would benefit them. It wasn't a good story -- no plot to speak of -- but the germ of the idea was there.

I didn't think it was a good idea then and I don't think it is now.

I'd be curious as to exactly what mechanism you'd suggest for your continuous electoral system. How would you attempt to protect against fraud?

[Charlls]

4. bank accounting tecnology could be easily adapted

The technology used for bank accounting is rather well developed, its security is well understood, and it could be adapted rather easily to the needs of an election system, that alongs the fact that now the organism for running the system wont be a private corporation, but a public organism. The idea to audit the disparity between the national database numbers and the real votes done by voters could be esentially the same used in one-time-shot elections: take a statistical sample (0.01% usually do) of voters and compare they current voting booklets with the ones in the national database, if there is a measurable disparity (>0.5%) it means something is happening and political numbers wont update as long as the disparity stays above that limit.


Note that using bank accounting technology doesnt imply at all that voters have to deal with machines; the idea is that an elector can simply go to nearest office, look into available voting options/candidacies in newspaper or in the same offices, request a update form, fill it, and have its electoral booklet updated with its new electoral state

People like to see complications where there are none, or just dismissing new ideas based on old arguments. There are no technical reasons (at all) to think such a system would be hard or even complicated to implement. No reasons to think that people will have a bad time mentally adapting to the new scheme (specially when they understand they can changes who are they supporting); the only reason that could be still debatable are the stability issues that could potentially arise.


If this system is going to be dismissed by progressists, at least presenting some argument is required

Unless you are simply ignoring it, then you are NOT a progressist anymore